


Chaos Burning

by CelestialIguana



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Romance, and an attempt at politics that you can ignore, mama superpowers au, sort of ot12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialIguana/pseuds/CelestialIguana
Summary: Two people hide in a dark forest, pretending to be trees. One says to the other, Are you hiding here too?The other says, Fuck, a talking tree.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Kim Jongdae | Chen
Comments: 9
Kudos: 115





	Chaos Burning

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that the Seelie and Unseelie are typically fairies, but as the author, i have taken creative license and do not want to deal with all the fairy lore

The forest is dark, but it makes no difference to Baekhyun. He sees just fine amongst the murky shadows and moves through them like smoke. Those following behind can’t say the same, though, and he takes savage pleasure in their inconvenience. 

They don’t have to chase him. It’s common knowledge that Byun Baekhyun, first of his name, fifth prince of the Unseelie Court, has never wanted the throne. He has no taste for politics. But some make the effort anyway. It’s the protocol of things, after all—when the court gives the crown to the strongest prince, one must do their best to gain the support of the other five. Whether that be through bribery, blackmail, or running them down in a darkened forest. Whatever works. 

But this won’t work, and Baekhyun knows it. Sehun and Minseok, hot on his heels but steadily catching up, know it. Yixing knows it, and that’s why he stayed behind for this one. There will be other opportunities, the healer knows. 

(Yixing, fourth prince of the Unseelie Court, Prince of Blood and Bone, knows more than he lets on. He’s a healer by tradition, but tradition only keeps him mostly in line, and his power over living flesh gives him access to practices of a more unsavory nature. Even Baekhyun does his best to avoid whatever bloody experiments Yixing keeps underground.)

The temperature drops by a few degrees. Baekhyun frowns and suspiciously eyes the icy leaves crunching under his feet. He doesn’t think Minseok is close enough to have this much control of the frost creeping up the tree trunks, but perhaps Sehun’s winds are assisting. A flurry whipping past his cheek confirms the assumption. 

Well. Maybe he was taking this all a bit too casually anyway. Nothing too terrible would happen if Sehun and Minseok caught up, outside of the cuts and scrapes from the inevitable fight, but the few months of house arrest would cramp his upcoming vacation plans. He’d be able to take either Minseok or Sehun individually, and certainly neither would have come after him alone, in the dark no less, but together, with such complementary powers, the outcome would not be in his favor. In a fair fight, at least. 

He’d been counting on Luhan coming instead of Sehun, since his telekinesis would have been of no help to Minseok’s ice, but. Fate is out of his control. 

A sharp breeze heralds Sehun's imminent arrival. Baekhyun could never outrun him, even when they were young and inexperienced. He doesn’t think anyone could, although Jongin of the Seelie Court might stand a slim chance if no rules ban instant teleportation.

Baekhyun is only able to make it a few meters more before the Prince of Ashes and Dust knocks him off his feet with a freezing gust of wind. He hits the rough ground hard, hands scraping against frozen rocks. His palms sting from the cold. Minseok arrives soon after, frost in his footsteps. Baekhyun spits ice and grass from his mouth and rolls to his feet, eyes blazing. 

“You’re interrupting my walk.”

Sehun raises an eyebrow. “Bit late for a walk, don’t you think?”

Minseok laughs. The sound always takes Baekhyun by surprise. It isn’t right for the Prince of Ice and Winter to laugh like summer, but he does it anyway. Maybe purely because it throws people off. Minseok has always been difficult to read. 

“You ripped the light from half the Court, Baek, were you expecting to be able to just run away?” Minseok’s fingers twitch, and Baekhyun watches as a few small icicles snap from his fingertips and melt on the forest floor. 

Fine. Maybe Baekhyun had been hoping enough of the Court would be too busy stumbling around in the darkness to come chasing after him. Maybe he had been hoping that Yixing would’ve come after him instead. Those chases always ended in a much more interesting manner. (Not any less violent, necessarily, but. Less formal. Sometimes they could even reach an alliance of sorts.) Maybe he had been hoping Luhan would throw a party large enough that the whole Court ignored the little prank of his and instead worked to gain the favor of the Prince of Magic and Lies. But apparently that was too much to hope for. 

“It was a gift,” Baekhyun says, grinning thinly. a few spheres of light slip from his fingertips to hover amongst the tree branches, throwing Minseok and Sehun's harsh faces into stark contrast. Sehun winces at the sudden brightness, but Minseok remains still. More cautious, if anything. (He is smart to be so. Sehun is young and confident, and has not yet seen what Baekhyun can do with only a thought. Baekhyun does not intend to show him. Not yet.) “I wanted everyone to see the stars.”

Sehun shivers a little and moves a few steps away from Minseok. It’s late summer, after all. No one is dressed for Minseok’s ice. 

“The gift was unnecessary.” Sehun’s voice is light but in his eyes brews a tornado. “And warrants retribution.”

Baekhyun thinks retribution might be a little over dramatic. He only plunged half the Court into a mid-afternoon darkness. (He’d intended to do the entire Court, but decided to hold back on the basis that, were he to be chased, he would need a hefty reserve of power. Baekhyun is a gods damned genius, and not enough people appreciate that.)

But it’s not really his prank that matters. It’s his status as prince, and the Prince of Ashes and Dust has been straining to prove his kingly capabilities for some time now. A victory over Baekhyun would shoot him to the top, gain him significant support with the people. More than Yixing, perhaps. It’s hard to predict outcomes in a Court of chaos, though, so who can say. (If Baekhyun had more money, he’d go to Chronos, with his power over time and future sight. But Chronos is expensive, and the meeting risky. Neither Baekhyun nor Chronos enjoys traveling through this archaic forest unless they must.)

Sehun’s eyes flash white, and leaves shake from the trees. His hair remains untouched even as Minseok and Baekhyun’s whip against their cheeks. Baekhyun’s breath mists in the chilled air and frost collects on his eyelashes. 

“Well,” he says, as the shadows lengthen and twist around him. “That looks like my cue to leave.”

Minseok grins coldly. “You should come back to Court with us, don’t you think? It’s not safe to be out in such odd weather.” A bitingly cold wind snaps through Baekhyun's clothes and hair, as if to prove Minseok’s point. Minseok’s presence on this hunt can only mean that he’s thrown his lot in with Sehun, at least for now. It’s a fickle frost that blows with the north wind.

Baekhyun opens his mouth as if to respond and Sehun’s legs tense, preparing to leap forward with wind in his step, but just as Sehun crouches to jump Baekhyun snaps his fingers. The forest goes black. 

Well. Not for Baekhyun, of course, but Minseok and Sehun, particularly after the brightness of Baekhyun's oh so convenient lights, are effectively blind. 

It’s only a small party trick of his, insignificant, but they really should’ve known not to chase the prince of light into the darkness. It was probably Sehun's idea. The youngest prince is popular with the Court, but woefully unprepared for the throne if he really thinks Baekhyun would attempt to best two princes in a physical battle. He’s never been one for direct fighting. He’ll leave that to Yifan and Sehun and Minseok, thank you very much. (Yixing is drawn towards academia, and Luhan towards that which puts his name on another’s lips, by whatever means necessary.) 

And Baekhyun has one more trick up his sleeve. There are those who think it odd that someone with the power of light should be a prince of the Unseelie Court, the Court of Night, Court of Nightmares, Court of Lies. But it’s not that different in the end. Light, after all, is just a manipulation of darkness. Baekhyun is the Prince of Light and Shadow, and frost and wind are useless when blind, when the friend cannot be differentiated from the enemy. 

Light can be manipulated, twisted, tricked. It is not innocent or forgiving. Baekhyun is the harsh brilliance that burns, the blinding light that creates the deepest shadows. With a flick of his fingers, what little starlight that trickles through the thick leaves bends around Baekhyun's figure, hiding him from prying eyes. 

By the time Sehun and Minseok’s eyes adjust to the dim lighting, Baekhyun is gone. Like a passing shadow. Or a trick of the light. 

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Jongdae is running on pure adrenaline, although he suspects that his propensity for electricity contributes more to his current state of high energy. He can feel it running through his blood constantly. Incessantly. Sparks flicker through his hair and clothes on an hourly basis. As he steps carefully through the forest, he keeps a tight hold on his lightning. An outburst now would give away his position. 

It’s exhausting, having no outlet. 

The Seelie Court is notoriously good. Court of Summer, Court of Life, Court of Truth. It’s never been called Court of freedom, though, and Jongdae would be the first to veto that choice, had it ever been presented to the council. He doesn’t know if he has that power, as the second prince in line for the throne, but Junmyeon might make an exception. The Tidemaker has always had a soft spot for Jongdae. 

That good favor might be running out, considering the havoc Jongdae just brought upon the Court. Junmyeon might not forgive him for the breach of trust. Zitao will surely not forget the destruction of his prized wardrobe.

Dusk sets upon the forest silently, broken only by Jongdae’s footsteps. Perhaps it is dangerous, running into the forest bordering the Unseelie Court, but Jongdae doesn’t have any other choices. The ancient forest is the only place, outside of the Unseelie lands themselves, that the Seelie guards are forbidden from going. And they would never go where they are forbidden, because such is the Seelie way.

Jongdae has just taken a sledgehammer to the Seelie way and shattered it into a million irreparable pieces. The Firefly may never be welcomed back as a prince. 

(A small part of him wonders whether he wants to return at all.)

Really, though. It’s not too terrible, what he’s done. Any child with a gift has done the same, at one point in their life, and those with a gift like Jongdae’s are even more susceptible. It was to be expected. The problem is, Jongdae's not any child with a gift. And as the Prince Jongdae, the Firefly, first of his name, second in line for the Seelie throne, he isn’t allowed mistakes. 

In fact, due to the nature of his gift, he isn’t allowed to use it at all. 

In the end, how much of the disaster is his fault? Shorten the leash enough, something’s going to snap. And it just so happened to be the Seelie summer palace. If Jongdae squints, he can make out the smoke of the lightning-blasted building, burning to the ground. 

(It was just one event that finally tipped the scales out of balance, in the end, and not even a particularly malicious one. Jongin has always been partial to tricks, and when Zitao joins in, the entire court walks on tiptoe. They just happened to find Jongdae at a bad time, and the ensuing jump scare resulted in a surprise lightning storm. By that logic, the blame should lie also on Jongin and Zitao, but the people love their Traveller and Chronos and nothing will come of it. Jongdae is sharp and unpredictable and they do not love him. He sees caution in their eyes, bleeding into dark fear.)

It seems unlikely that any child with a lightning gift will ever be given a title again. How unfortunate. 

Jongdae knows it’s done differently in the Unseelie Court. There only the most powerful claw their way to the top of the pecking order and sit tense on the throne, making and breaking alliances like bones and spilling blood freely. It’s a dangerous occupation, being prince of Unseelie. There’s a new king on the rise, he hears, but it’s unclear who as of yet. 

He was tested, like all Seelie children, in the early years of school. A test of morals, of intelligence, of the strength of your gift, of your political skills. Jongdae passed with flying colors (the morals test is easy to fool) and was named Firefly in honor of his achievements, only to have his freedom stripped from him in fear once they realized his full, untamed potential. 

He thought fear didn’t exist in Seelie. He thought Seelie was the Court of eternal happiness and joy and bliss and wasn’t he wrong.

The forest is cold, Jongdae notices, from his perch on a low hanging branch. Surprisingly cold for the late summer months. Almost cold enough for him to start a fire, but he restrains the urge, even as goosebumps prickle up his arms and neck. He knows better than to start a fire in such a forest as night approaches. Who knows what approaches with it. 

Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. 

Twilight is the witching hour, when even the gifted hesitate to tread the forest paths. 

Jongdae closes his eyes and wonders what his fellow princes are doing. Cleaning up his mess, no doubt. Junmyeon overseeing the operation, chanyeol managing the fires, Jongin and Kyungsoo assisting with civilians, Zitao probably doing nothing at all. (Zitao could do the most, though. He could turn back the clock, return the fires to their initial sparks, vanish the scorch marks, but he won’t, because as far as the Court knows, as far as the people know, all he can do is manipulate the speed of time in a constrained bubble. He was smarter than Jongdae from the first.) They never felt it like Jongdae did, the chains, invisible and yet always choking the air from Jongdae’s lungs. Eventually they had to snap or he’d suffocate. 

Electricity is not meant to be contained. The number of times he’s been told to stop, to relax, to chill out, he can’t remember. Too many. Even chanyeol, which his pyromaniac tendencies, is allowed more freedom than Jongdae. (The people don’t know him like Jongdae does. Of course you should fight fire with fire, Chanyeol says. You should fight everything with fire.) Maybe because Chanyeol is tall but soft and gentle in all the ways Jongdae is not. Jongdae, whose mouth curves up sharply at the edges and gives the impression of a secret, whose eyes are much too feline to invoke warmth. But it’s not his fault. 

They call it a gift, in Seelie. The gift of fire, of water, of lightning. It’s called power in Unseelie. The prince with the power of light or the power of healing (although Jongdae has doubts regarding the amount of healing that actually goes on in such a case). But call it power or gift or curse, it was not Jongdae's decision but it is his life, and he will not suffer it to be restricted by the chains of others’ fears. Whether they be well founded or not. 

The forest is colder, now. Jongdae shivers and his breath mists before him. As the last of the sunlight drips away, he maneuvers himself into a lightning-cracked tree and settles in to sleep. (It was easy to find; he could feel its residual electricity and scorched trunk from a great distance away.) It’s rough, and the scent of damp leaves and moss tickles Jongdae's nose, but it works. In the morning, perhaps he’ll leave the forest. Nothing good can happen in such primeval darkness. 

🌟🌟🌟

Baekhyun thinks he’s been wandering through the forest for going on a day when he first hears it. At first he thinks it’s one of the princes still after him, but Minseok would have gone back to Court by now, and Sehun would never make so much fucking noise. 

The snapping twigs and crinkling leaves are cacophonous in the dead silence of the trees. Baekhyun has skill moving silently, but his pursuer obviously does not. Either they severely underestimate Baekhyun, or overestimate themselves. 

Or, Baekhyun considers, as the sounds wander off in a different direction, they don’t even know he’s here. 

An opportunity, perhaps?

The person, because Baekhyun is sure it’s human, by the speed of the gait and the glimpses of a shadow he gets between the branches, moves leisurely. slowly, almost. Baekhyun has to check himself multiple times so as to not walk right into the persons line of sight. 

The forest is warmer now that Minseok has left. More appropriate for the summer day. There would be birds in the trees had this been a different forest, but the plants being as they are (vaguely carnivorous), birds and insects alike tend to stay away. Baekhyun has little to worry about from that front— humans are unpalatable. for the plants, at least. There are worse things that move within the shadows, and Baekhyun intends to leave as soon as he gets confirmation that it’s safe to do so. Before he overstays his welcome. 

Baekhyun jerks to a stop as a voice filters through the muffled atmosphere. It’s male, lilting, and unmistakably Sehun. Baekhyun had thought he’d left this gods damned forest. 

And the person before him has no idea of the danger they’re walking into.

Peaking around a tree as carefully as he can, Baekhyun sees Sehun speaking with someone in a low tone, phone pressed to his ear. Baekhyun left his phone in his quarters. He doesn’t trust Luhan not to track him through it. 

He can’t hear what Sehun’s saying, but he bets the person he’s been following can. Speaking of… he doesn’t see them anymore, and Sehun still seems unconcerned. 

Baekhyun pivots, heart beating faster. He’s worried now. It was fun to follow the harmless person lost in the forest, but Baekhyun is as much lost as they are, and he’s beginning to suspect they’re not as harmless as he first believed. No one who steps foot in this wood is what they seem. 

His eyes scan the shadows rapidly, too nervous to actually move any for fear Sehun, still oblivious (and he hopes to be king, what a joke), might notice the shift. But there, to his right, just behind a large branch—

A head pokes out, black hair curved over one brow, and then the rest of a pale face emerges, with eyes crackling like fire. Like electricity. Like—

Baekhyun jolts backwards, and the crack of a twig snapping echoes like a gunshot through the trees. Sehun's voice silences. The man hiding in the trees glares at Baekhyun, and Baekhyun almost whither under its force, before he reminds himself that he is a prince of Unseelie, and will not crumble before the eyes of a Seelie prince. 

“Baekhyun!” Sehun calls, raising his hands. Baekhyun curses under his breath, hair snapping across his face under Sehun’s wind. “Come out of your shadows.”

The Firefly raises an eyebrow. Baekhyun has no fucking idea what he’s going to do. If the Seelie prince sides with him, Sehun will run. If he sides with Sehun, Baekhyun will surely lose. If he just stands there and watches, the pressure of his eyes on the back of Baekhyun's neck might prove too much for him anyway. 

He’s heard people say better the devil you know, but… the people who said that have obviously never seen what kind of devil Sehun can be. 

Taking a deep breath, Baekhyun rips the shadows from the trees around him and steps forward. 

“I’m not the only one in the shadows,” he says, and the Firefly of the Seelie Court stands blinking in the sudden light, surprise written in every line of his face. 

The forest shivers as the blistering winds die. Sehun frowns slightly.

“Firefly,” he says, hesitantly. His arms lower. “You’re quite far from home.”

The Firefly crosses his arms, but Baekhyun can sense the discomfort in his stance. It feels like static and burns like iron across his tongue.“I wasn't intending to run into two Unseelie princes on my walk, I assure you.”

“Lots of people taking walks through the deadly forest these days,” Sehun mutters, and it’s meant as a distraction but Baekhyun sees his fingers moving deftly across his phone anyway. Minseok is likely already on the way, with frost in his eyes and his laugh and at his fingertips, dagger-like in their ice. 

Baekhyun will not fight Minseok hand-to-hand. Sehun is manageable, for the youngest prince is inexperienced and gullible, but Minseok knows Baekhyun, knows his tricks and power all too well. Baekhyun would rather run in cowardice than have his blood freeze into needles in his veins.

“I would love to talk more, Sehun, but I can’t. you see—” Baekhyun says, backing away, not meeting the Firefly’s judgemental eyes. Leaving already, they ask. When you were the one who brought this upon us? With a flick of his hand, Sehun’s shadow begins a slow crawl up his feet and ankles, but the prince is focusing on the Firefly and doesn’t notice the creeping darkness. (Sehun doesn’t notice many things. He doesn’t notice that Minseok is likely using him as a stepping stone to the throne, that Yixing is building the Prince of Winter an elite guard of protectors, forged from ice and bone, that there is a new king rising and it won’t be him. Unseelie loves him but Unseelie is not a democracy.)

Baekhyun ducks a tree branch the wind sends flying at his head and braves himself against the brewing storm. It’s hard to speak over the blistering wind Sehun is whipping up, but he makes an attempt anyway. 

“I really must be going,” he calls, and the shadow finally makes it up Sehun’s neck and over his eyes, summer winds thrashing in indignation. A sharp pain slashes across his cheek and it stings as he speaks. “I'm late for a very important meeting. Princes have duties, you know.”

Fighting against the winds and barely dodging a dagger flung haphazardly from somewhere in the middle of the rising dust storm, Baekhyun scrambles from the small clearing back into the safer depths of the forest, the screaming wind muffled between the leaves. He collapses against a tree and coughs up sand in gasping breaths. He isn’t meant for physical activity. In the new peace, Baekhyun begins weaving himself a new cloak of light, concentrating on getting the refraction and angles just right so as to hide him from view—

“Stop.”

Baekhyun freezes. 

“Why are you here,” he says, looking up from his half-finished cloak to see the fucking Firefly of the Seelie Court, hands in his pockets, hair somehow perfect despite the eighty mile per hour winds Sehun had been spinning not twenty minutes ago. 

“What do you mean, why am I here?” the Firefly shoots back. “You were following me.” 

“No I wasn’t.”

“You most definitely were, I saw you.”

“No you didn’t.” Baekhyun drops his mostly finished cloak over his head. It doesn’t reach his feet. “I’m invisible.”

“You’re not.”

“But I am.”

“Are you actually insane?”

Baekhyun grins and winks, before remembering that his head can’t be seen. 

“Don’t follow me,” the Firefly hisses, and footsteps crunch into the dry leaves. 

Baekhyun drags his cloak off his head. “Wait!”

The Firefly hesitates, turning slightly.

“You’re literally so loud. If you’re planning on continuing your walk, I suggest you fix that. Things darker than Sehun or I dwell in these woods. Your electricity can only do so much.”

“It can do enough,” the prince mutters. 

Someone sounds bitter. 

“Anyway,” Baekhyun continues, brightening (somewhat literally). “I was also planning a sort of extended walk through these woods, at least until a certain overdue idiot tells me otherwise.” Yixing was going to send a letter by pigeon when it was safe to return, but that was looking more and more unlikely by the minute. And forests get lonely. Baekhyun needs attention to survive. He tosses a grin in the Firefly’s direction. 

“Care to accompany me?”

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Time moves strangely beneath the leafy canopy. It ebs and flows like the tides, tides the likes of which Jongdae has never experienced. The perpetual semi-darkness and interwoven shadows flutter with every breath of wind and move in patterns unknown and unpredictable, and he finds that he is unsure of how many hours have passed since he began walking with the Prince of Light and Shadow.

They walk in with quiet conversation, the Prince’s loquaciousness proving insurmountable, long stories interrupted only by the occasional scoff when Jongdae steps on a particularly crackly leaf or an appropriately dry branch, and though there’s been no sign that the Prince of Ashes and Dust still searches for them, Jongdae winces anyway.

The Unseelie prince, for his part, moves like his namesake. Light on his feet and sleek as a shadow, the moon eclipsing the sun. He doesn’t fit Jongdae’s idea of the Unseelie prince of legend, but perhaps the legends are wrong. 

(They’re not, he realizes, as the prince recites in a cheerful voice how he kept a veil of darkness over the Prince of Winter’s eyes for nearly a year and forced a cursed winter on the whole of Unseelie, a bright smile on his lips. Darkness walks hand in hand with light, and the Prince of Shadows is a twisted almagamation.)

“So what made you decide to leave?” The inevitable question comes sooner than Jongdae expects, but the Unseelie thrive on the unexpected. 

The prince has dark eyes that dance with a mischievous light. Jongdae does not fear them. His own electricity thrums in recognition. 

“I never said I was leaving.”

The prince grins crookedly. “You didn’t.”

“I’m not.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Jongdae hums. “Neither do I.” It sounds pathetic, even to his own ears, but he’s not one for lying. He is Seelie above all, even if the truth is more painful than the alternative. 

The prince waits. The forest seems to inhale in apprehension. 

“I couldn’t handle the pressure,” Jongdae finally says with a sigh. It’s the truth. someone’s truth, at least. 

A laugh answers his statement. “You Seelie.” Dark eyes shine with mirth. “You’re as much a lier as I.”

Jongdae can’t say anything without proving him correct. 

“The lightning bug of the south,” the prince muses. “the Firefly of Seelie, too powerful for his own Court.” He tosses a sideways glance over his shoulder. 

“They fear you, of course. that’s why you ran.”

“It wasn’t running.”

“No,” he agrees. “Just a public resignation.”

A laugh bubbles from Jongdae’s chest. “They shouldn’t have put limits on my gift.” He catches the prince grinning slightly, something indecipherable in the shadows of his pale face.

“The Seelie Court fears what it cannot control,” Baekhyun says, “and you are chaos burning.”

🌟🌟🌟

The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who can say where one ends, and the other begins? Things meld together in the clouded mists of the ancient forest. Seelie and Unseelie aren’t as different as the names imply. 

Electricity does not want to be controlled or directed. The Tidemaker and all the rest brought upon themselves the destruction of their perfumed castle, and the cause stands powerful and electric before Baekhyun, unafraid and unrepentant. 

(He shouldn’t be. Baekhyun hopes he’s not. The Seelie Firefly is so very interesting, and Baekhyun doesn’t want the throne, but he didn’t want much else either. Now he does.)

The Firefly moves confidently. He cares not if the forest creaks with the rustling of leaves, or if something blinks at them from the murky depths. It’s intoxicating. Creeping vines wind around and around and disappear into the undergrowth and when his foot leaves the ground, singed leaves and smoking earth mark where where he stepped. 

“Not very discreet, is it?” Baekhyun gestures to the ground behind the pair. 

The prince raises an eyebrow, and Baekhyun is once again struck breathless.

“Should I be?”

Baekhyun shrugs. “This forest is older than power, and has some of its own. I wouldn’t risk it.”

“I thought the Unseelie were all about risks,” the Firefly says. “all ambitious and dangerous and impulsive.”

“Ambition and danger don’t necessarily stem from recklessness,” Baekhyun counters, lips quirking into a smile. “Who says i’m not ambitious?”

“I’ve heard that the Prince of Light and Shadow doesn’t care for the throne of Unseelie.”

“You’ve heard correctly. That doesn’t mean I don’t want other things.”

“Then why don’t you fight for them?” 

“I do my best to avoid combat.”

The Firefly—Jongdae—cocks his head to the side. 

“I don’t.”

Chaos is magnetic, and Baekhyun finds himself falling faster than he ever thought possible. 

🌟🌟🌟

The forest shudders with the force of Jongdae’s lightning as Baekhyun drops to his knees under the striking onslaught of heat and pure energy, breath coming in shuddering gasps. The rough rocks scrape at his knees, but the discomfort is nothing compared to the electricity racing through his blood and making his hair stand on end.

His heart flutters, from excitement and adrenaline and countless volts of energy rushing down his arms. 

(He’d never stood a chance. Jongdae is accustomed to sudden flashes of light, and with his own source of energy, shadows are effectively compromised. he’d managed to slip through the darkness for long enough to land a single punch on the prince’s face before Jongdae blasted Baekhyun off his feet and forced him to his knees.)

Jongdae’s voice filters through layers of muffling fog to reach his ears.

“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry in the slightest, and Baekhyun doesn’t mind at all. “Didn’t mean to use quite that much.”

Baekhyun raises his head with difficulty and licks the residual iron and ozone off his lips. The air crackles and smells like a brewing storm.

“You can use as much you want, Firefly. There’s no one stopping you.”

Jongdae frowns slightly. From Baekhyuns position in the fallen leaves, the prince’s sharp cheekbones are even more pronounced, and the glow of power still glistens from within his skin. A bruise forms like dark blush beneath his left eye. 

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s your title.”

“It’s my Court title. I’m not calling you the Prince of Light and Shadow, am I? Call me by my name.”

Baekhyun sits back on his heels, still catching his breath. 

“Jongdae,” he says, breathless and smiling. Iron burns the back of his throat. Jongdae’s eyes are unreadable, even though Baekhyun’s always been adept at faces. Faces and people.

When Jongdae shifts his stance, the ground beneath him is scorched black and smoking. The forest primeval accepts the prince’s power with ancient grace. 

(Baekhyun moves through the wood with caution. Jongdae walks it and the shadows bend before him. It seems Baekhyun does, too.)

Jongdae rolls his eyes, although he looks pleased at Baekhyun's compliance. He brushes past Baekhyun, dragging a hand through the kneeling prince’s missed hair. A shock travels through Baekhyun's shoulders and heat threads his veins. 

“When are we leaving this gods damned forest?”

If not for Jongdae’s question, Baekhyun might’ve remained on his knees for eternity. He was never a very good prince anyway. 

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Jongdae knows three things about Byun Baekhyun, first of his name, Prince of Light and Shadow, fifth in line for the Unseelie throne, listed here in no particular order:

  * One: the prince is deadly, even if his punches land weakly and he carries no blade. His words land with precision, aimed like the sharpest knife, and the skill with which he weaves light and darkness sends chills through Jongdae’s blood. He watches Baekhyun’s hands with apprehension and a touch of something that coils hot deep within his stomach as Baekhyun spins light into cloaks of invisibility and shadow into a darkness so complete that even the stars fail to pierce through. Baekhyun, if he wished, could remake the world in eternal night. 

  * Two: he is beautiful, so much so that Jongdae hesitates to look at Baekhyun’s face as he speaks for fear he will notice how Jongdae’s gaze drops immediately to his lips. It’s an unreasonable fear, as Jongdae has caught Baekhyun’s eyes fix on his own lips, cheekbones, hands, but reciprocation isn’t the same as acquiescence, so he leaves the matter be.

  * Three: he cares little for the material world, although his hair and clothes remain spotless save for faint grass stains adorning his knees. He spends so much time watching the dance of shadows and sunlight that the physical fades away. His left earring is missing, and Jongdae isn’t sure whether or not Baekhyun has realized.




The list isn’t complete. Jongdae intends for it to continue, but he doesn’t know when the foray through the woods is scheduled to end. The forest is ancient chaos eternal. The magic running deep through its roots cares not for the whims of frivolous princes, and Jongdae isn’t quite sure he even wants to leave. There’s something about the forest. 

There’s something about Baekhyun. 

🌟🌟🌟

Baekhyun knows many things about Kim Jongdae, third of his name (although the other two are irrelevant by Baekhyun’s standards), the Firefly, second in line in the Seelie Court, but for convenience purposes, the following three traits, in order of increasing value, are the most important. In Baekhyun’s educated opinion, of course. 

  * Three: Jongdae’s beauty. As subjective as such a thing is, Baekhyun has impeccable taste. His hands, Baekhyun notices, are stained black with what he’d originally assumed to be dirt but now recognizes for what it is. Soot and scorch marks run like ink from Jongdae’s fingertips, twisting under his nails and across his palms randomly, fading at the wrist. Baekhyun wants to trace the map of his scars and learn their secrets. He wants to see if they still burn like fire or taste of iron. He wants to know if they might stain his lips black. 

  * Two: Jongdae’s power. his gift, as the Seelie say. It’s godlike, to Baekhyun. It rips the breath from his lungs and drags his heart to a standstill, fluttering shakily in his chest. How Jongdae walks steady with that amount of power held in his hands, Baekhyun doesn’t know. But he manages, and he more than manages. He walks with the confidence of one who can strike with the power of the old gods themselves, who can burn you to ash in a blink. Baekhyun’s head spins thinking about it. And part of him wants to feel that power again, coursing through his blood. 

  * One: Jongdae’s eyes. In his eyes lies the truth, and it blinds even Baekhyun, who creates light with every breath. In his dark eyes lives the truth of what hides in Jongdae’s heart, the beast coming into its own, the drop of ancient chaos finally rearing its head, long overdue. He might burn the world to ashes and Baekhyun would walk at his side if only to see the darkness come into its own. Lightning is pandemonium absolute, and Baekhyun cannot look away. 




He also knows Jongdae will likely never sit on the throne. He knows the too-sensitive Tidemaker will relent and call for his friend’s return, even if others disagree. But he doesn’t know what Jongdae’s response will be, and he doesn’t dare hope. The forest is addictive. There’s something in the soil or in the air or in the water and Jongdae and Baekhyun both have spent too long drinking it in.

He knows something about himself too, although he wishes he didn’t. He knows he doesn’t want to emerge from the murky woods alone.

The forest calls, as do its lies.

Light and shadow hide reality behind a flimsy veil, and Baekhyun could never tell the difference. 

⚡️⚡️⚡️

It happens slowly, the fall. A glance, a touch, a laugh splitting the dense silence of the forest. Jongdae has always walked too close to the edge, and it’s all too easy to topple forward. 

Even easier if you jump yourself. 

It starts with Baekhyun, as most things do. A breath, a question. 

“Can I see your scars?” he asks, quietly. Jongdae can say no, if he wants. He doesn’t. 

Baekhyun’s hands are warm and his fingers gentle as he traces the black dripping from Jongdae’s fingertips to his wrists, eyes intent on his mission. It tickles, but Jongdae does his best not to twitch in Baekhyun’s grasp.

Baekhyun’s breath tickles his palms even more. His lips not at all. Jongdae wouldn’t dream of letting go. 

🌟🌟🌟

Jongdae’s skin crackles with static under Baekhyun’s hands, sometimes. Baekhyun doesn’t mind. It barely registers in his already addled brain. 

Shadows dance between the dappled leaves when they run through the forest, shifting through their footsteps and taking them deeper in. Or closer to the edge. Baekhyun doesn’t know. He’s long since accepted that Yixing’s messenger flutters somewhere within the unseen depths, helplessly caught in the jaws of a carnivorous vine. 

The forest, although it may seem so, isn’t infinite. Eventually he will run out of darkness and it will be time to see the world as it was, rather than the one he creates with tricks of light among the forest mists. 

Time slips through the cracks somehow. Nothing lasts, no matter how tightly Baekhyun grips Jongdae’s hips or how harshly he drags his nails down his back. The bruise on Jongdae’s cheek fades and Baekhyun gives him new ones, with his lips and teeth this time. The decorate his neck and wrists and chest with pretty blooms of dark red, and Baekhyun surveys them with pride. 

Jongdae’s eyes beckon to a world of sparks and light and anarchy eternal, and Baekhyun was raised on chaos but he still wonders what will remain, once he burns to ashes. 

Nevertheless, he burns. 

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Daybreak follows night as it is want to do, and all mists burn away in the morming light. The Prince of Blood and Bone arrives silently and without preamble, a single figure waiting against a tree as if part of the forest himself. 

Baekhyun greets him with dancing eyes, a bright smile, and a question about… a pigeon? The prince answers quietly, in the softest voice Jongdae has ever heard. He can’t make out the words.

(Kyungsoo speaks quietly but not softly. In his voice stands the strength of the mountains, and his unwavering calm is why Seelie calls for his regency. But there will be no rebellion, Jongdae knows. It’s not the Seelie way. And Junmyeon controls the life-giving rivers.)

“Firefly,” comes that soft voice. “I hope you are well, and have had the good fortune to evade what ancient dangers tread these forest shadows.”

Jongdae inclines his head in an approximation of a bow. The prince’s eyes are unreadable. “I walk with one who commands them.”

Baekhyun laughs, and the sound burns into Jongdae’s very being. He feels his soul twisting in his chest, making and remaking itself around this pale mirage of a figure, dappled with grey-green shadow. 

“The forest calls for strange allies, Yixing, and stranger friends. But how goes the Court in my absence?”

The prince grins cruelly, so at odds with his deceptively mild tone. “Minseok rises quickly. I expect a coronation before the year is out.”

Jongdae shivers. He should not be here, privy to a conversation discussing the Unseelie monarchy in no vague terms.

“And Sehun? How does he fare?”

Yixing’s eyes dance with a strange light. “Sehun’s twice-failure to bring you to Court on your knees is… taking a toll on his popularity.”

Jongdae has no doubt that Yixing himself has had no small hand in igniting the gossip. 

“The others will fall in line behind whichever approaches them with the sweeter promise, I suspect,” Yixing muses.

“And you?” It’s not Jongdae’s place, he knows this. but he’s always walked the knife’s edge, and curiosity burns to hot to ignore. 

Yixing’s eyes narrow, as if noticing for the first time that a Seelie prince stands next to the two Unseelie. 

“I will follow wherever the wind blows,” the prince says. 

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow. “And where might that be?”

“You haven’t yet said to whom your support goes,” Yixing points out. “Why should I?”

Baekhyun hums softly. “Of course, you don’t need to. I just hope the summer sun doesn’t hurt that ice skeleton production line you have moving so smoothly right now.”

The forest creaks around them, and Yixing flicks his gaze uncertainly to the murky undergrowth, feet shifting uncomfortably amongst the leaves. “Do you intend to make a claim?”

A claim on the Unseelie throne, he means. Jongdae stiffens, even though Baekhyun seems perfectly relaxed.

“Of course not,” he says, waving the notion away. The throne away. “Just making a point.” A small half-smile slips across his lips. “I merely don’t want anyone considering taking up Sehun’s favorite past time. I will not return unwillingly.”

Jongdae hopes he won’t return at all. But that would require the same promise from himself, and it’s not one he’s sure he can make. 

Yixing’s eyes a certain shadow suspiciously, right hand twitching toward the long, thin dagger hanging at his hip. “Baekhyun, we should take our leave soon. Nothing good can happen here.”

“Evidence points to the contrary.”

Yixing’s brow wrinkles in confusion, but Jongdae speaks before he can clarify Baekhyun’s obscure statement. 

“May I speak with Baekhyun, for a moment?”

Yixing opens his mouth, eyes narrowed, but Baekhyun wraps an arm around Jongdae’s neck and drags him to the side of the clearing. “You absolutely may, Firefly.”

Yixing huffs, but returns to his nervous lookout. 

“How far can your Unseelie messengers travel?”

“You mean the pigeons?” Baekhyun asks, frowning. “I thought you were going to romantically ask me not to leave you alone in the forest. Why are you asking about the birds?”

“Would you? Leave me alone in the forest?”

“Would you feel sad if I did?”

“Do you ever give answers to simple questions?”

“Not when I don’t know the right answer.”

Jongdae smiles. It’s a sad smile, and it hurts against his lips. “I thought the Unseelie didn’t care about right or wrong.”

It is a striking thing, to see Baekhyun’s face as closed as it is now. His eyes, normally so bright, are cold.

Not cold, Jongdae decides. Just hidden.

“You’ve twisted everything upside down,” Baekhyun says quietly. “Seelie, Unseelie, who cares? I thought the Seelie were nice.”

“I am nice.” So many words go unsaid. I am nice, sometimes. Mostly. When i’m expected to be. When I want to be.

Baekhyun shakes his head. His hand falls from Jongdae’s neck and clasps his collar. Lips against Jongdae’s collarbone, his words sear into Jongdae’s skin like a tattoo. 

“Then why do I hurt?”

The last of the morning fog burns away, and takes Baekhyun with it.

🌟🌟🌟

Unseelie pigeons, Baekhyun discovers, can travel approximately 400 miles in three days. He knows this because the Seelie spring palace is approximately 400 miles away, and he sends a letter every three and waits three more for the bird to return with a message tied carefully around its twiggy leg. 

It’s also an easy way to ensure that a particular Prince of Magic isn’t tapping his phone. Baekhyun’s renouncement of the throne only goes so far. 

If these messages are found, any minor claim Baekhyun has to his title would be stripped from him. Unseelie has little mercy for her keepers, nor is much expected. Baekhyun knows this. 

He answers Jongdae’s letters anyway, every one, without fail.

His words come in ink, in pencil, once in blue marker. Sometimes scorch marks adorn the pages like seals, and sometimes Baekhyun imagines he can still smell iron and ozone rising from the paper.

It feels different, with countries between them instead of feet, but also not. The forest had a way of making every word travel leagues before reaching its destination, and what the forest started Baekhyun fights to continue. 

It feels different, without the mists obscuring the truth, but also not.

Baekhyun has never been one for reality anyway. 

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Jongdae names the little bird Whisper, because she comes quietly but no is less valuable for it, and her words carry the weight of a thousand proclamations. 

Everyword Baekhyun writes sounds like a promise.

He writes only in thin black pen, small handwriting looping across the paper and dragging Jongdae’s heart behind it. 

He tells of Unseelie’s autumn, of the way the light tints red and yellow through the changing leaves, how if he angles it right, he can burn holes through people’s clothing, or tattoo sunburns across their shoulders. He tells of the sunrise, how it rises red into the sky but not hot, how the pale clouds hang so low in blue expanse he sometimes thinks they might touch the ground. or that he might be able to reach up and touch them himself. He tells of the nights, of the stars in all their brilliant, eternal glory.

He envies other’s powers sometimes, he says, because where he can make shadow puppets and rainbows, they can change the nature of the world. Jongdae thinks he’s sorely mistaken, and says so. Baekhyun ignores that part in his response. 

He never speaks of Unseelie politics, and Jongdae reciprocates. Politics don’t need to be told of in midnight letters.

Junmyeon issued a public pardon the week of Jongdae’s return, but Chanyeol and Kyungsoo still eye him with suspicion. It will take a while, to regain their trust. 

And if his letters are found, he never will.

The Firefly would be wiped from the records of Seelie, and Jongdae would fade into mist. The gifted have long lives, but memory less so, faulty and incomplete. 

He feels them again, the chains. Cold steel and colder gazes. They line the halls as he walks by and freeze the nape of his neck when he turns his back. 

Fate loves symmetry, and it seems frost rises in the south just as it does in the north. 

The Prince of Ice and Winter nearly has the Unseelie throne in his grasp, but the city rumbles with discontent from behind his undead guard, courtesy of the Bone Prince. Minseok is not as popular as the youngest prince, with Sehun’s music voice and lilting words, and unfortunately for him, rebellion is common in Unseelie. Encouraged. 

Baekhyun dances among it all, smiling sharply, with shadows under his feet and behind his eyes. 

Turmoil’s wings hover dark over Unseelie, but Whisper flies true all the same. 

🌟🌟🌟

Baekhyun wants the letters to be enough.

They aren’t. 

Neither are rushed meetings deep in the forest shadows, hushed words and heated skin, but it’s what they have. For now. 

🌟🌟🌟

Minseok’s coronation happens in late autumn, amidst solemn faces and the last fall showers of red and gold. It’s Baekhyun’s favorite season. 

The king of Ice and Winter is resplendent in his silver and platinum crown. Responsibility looks good on Minseok. The people are as cold as their king. 

Baekhyun had thrown his support behind Minseok at the first hint of Sehun’s last fall from the public opinion, and that fact, combined with his long-standing friendship with Yixing, affords him a place of honor in the audience chamber. Sehun sits sulkingly in the dark shadows farther back, glaring as new crests of blue and white mountains rise to replace the blank tapestries. 

He is young. The powerful live to see centuries, and Unseelie regencies never last long. 

Next time, though, he might find himself with a new opponent. Baekhyun thinks he’s gained an interest in politics. 

✨✨✨

Whisper flies to and fro, followed by Mist, followed by Streak, named by Baekhyun both for her speed and for the thin black line bisecting her face.

Birds only live so long, after all, and time leaks out between the seams.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

The king of Ice’s reign is longer than expected, considering the frozen discontent rampant throughout Unseelie. For just over eighteen years, Minseok sits comfortably in the throne, and uncomfortably for seven more as subterfuge and rumors shake the country and its king off balance.

Jongdae keeps a careful eye on the Unseelie Court, as much as he can from beneath the close watch he himself is still under. Suspicion fades, after a while, but there still lies a crater of ash where Jongdae’s fury exploded. 

The spring palace is nicer than the summer one anyway, in Jongdae’s opinion.

But winter melts to spring, and Minseok abdicates at long last. He wasn’t bad, Jongdae thinks. Unseelie prospered under his hand. but it is not a Court of constancy, and with change comes chaos, and chaos their lifeblood. 

The king becomes a prince, and the game begins anew. 

This time with a new player. 

🌟🌟🌟

Baekhyun wants the throne. He wants it with such a savage intensity it shows in the set of his jaw and the burning light behind his eyes. 

Yixing falls behind his friend without much convincing, and Minseok moves in tandem with Yixing. Two down. 

Luhan acquiesces after a lengthy demonstration, during which he forces Baekhyun to explain several of his favorite tricks, light and shadows unraveling beneath his hands. The Prince of Magic and Lies can never resist the lure of secrets, though, and has always had a way with words. The truth spills from Baekhyun’s tongue, only partially unwilling, and one more knows what lives behind the thin veil of shadow. 

Minseok and Yixing take care of the Prince of Mists and Cloud, discreetly. A certain prince’s room suddenly becomes locked shut, with him inside. Shockingly, in midsummer, the windows freeze over with thick panes of ice. Inside, Yifan falls sick, blood running hot. It’s a clear message, and, to he who loves the sky, not one he can ignore. When he next emerges, it is in full support of Baekhyun. 

Sehun is hardest. Still prickling with shame at his last defeat, the Prince of Ashes and Dust seems ready to burn the Court down, with everyone inside. 

They meet in the forest, where everything started so many years ago. It feels like coming home. 

The mists still call to Baekhyun, tug at his boots and collect in his footprints. The murky shadows remind him of certain enchanted days.

Sehun watches him as he arrives. He has probably felt his movements in the winds hours ago, irritated that Baekhyun took his time.

A thin smile graces the prince’s face. Baekhyun knows he expects to win. 

“Ready for a rematch, usurper?” Sehun asks without preamble. 

Baekhyun smiles, and it’s shadowed and dark, with too many teeth. “Better usurper than failure.”

Sehun hisses through his teeth with a sound like wind screaming through the mountains. His knuckles clench white at his sides, and the trees groan around them. 

He calls to the wind, and the wind answers. The sky shrieks above them and throws Baekhyun to the ground, slamming his shoulder into a root and he bites off a hiss of pain, rocks stained red with his blood. He’s unprepared for such a sudden onslaught. 

As Baekhyun rolls to his feet against the blistering winds, he meets Sehun’s furious eyes. The Prince of Dust expects to win.

But Baekhyun has not spent the last twenty-odd years idle. He’s been practicing, and the wind hesitates as it scents the change. 

Baekhyun raises a bloody palm to the night sky and smiles savagely through his teeth, letting power flood his veins. Shadows twist beneath his feet, the forest creaks, and Sehun takes a step back, wind faltering. 

A heartbeat. Perhaps the trees sigh. Then Baekhyun snaps his fingers, and—

Darkness cracks like porcelain and the night shatters to pieces. Beams of burning white erupt from his palm and as the sky falls, Baekhyun laughs breathlessly. Light divine, light eternal.

Baekhyun is all of it, and more. 

Dawn breaks with brutal light, and crowns a new king. 

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Unseelie is beautiful in the spring, when Baekhyun’s coronation occurs amongst the brilliant flowers (some poisonous, others not). Unseelie is twilight and enchantment, things lost, found, changed. The chamber is lined with drops of starlight, and Jongdae sits in the front row, to the confusion of every set of eyes in the audience. 

The king’s first decree, before the coronation has even happened, instigates protocols improving international relations. Jongdae is there as a Seelie diplomat, technically, but Unseelie has always run on technicalities and implications, and this is no different. His presence remains unbothered. 

Baekhyun’s crown is black iron and silver, twisted in jagged shapes that he calls rays of light but Jongdae thinks look more like lightning bolts. It’s a moot point. 

Yixing crowns him with gentle hands and the new banners rise. Simple, horizontally-divided black and white background, with a centered grey silhouette. 

It’s a firefly, but few have realized the significance. 

The Prince of Magic and Lies surely knows, for Jongdae has felt his eyes on the back of his neck all evening. 

But Luhan’s glances are nothing compared to the steady heat of Baekhyun’s burning gaze, pinning him to his seat throughout the whole coronation process. 

Baekhyun looks good in a crown. Jongdae wants to see how he looks wearing nothing else.

🌟🌟🌟

Later, with Baekhyun gasping beneath him and his hands clawing at Jongdae’s hips and back, crown thrown to the side, Jongdae breathes the question into Baekhyun’s neck. 

“How long do diplomats stay in Court, Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun drags in a shuddering breath, neck craned to the side, hair in disarray. 

“As long as the king wants them to,” he manages, breathily. 

Jongdae slides warm hands down Baekhyun’s side. Static crackles where their skin touches. 

“And how long would that be?” He phrases it lightly, as if unimportant, but the slight shudder in his voice betrays the weight of the question. 

Baekhyun laughs brightly, spring sunlight tinting the edges, and the shadows of an ancient forest hide deep in his eyes. He clutches Jongdae closer to his chest, speaks his words, his promise, against Jongdae’s lips. 

“Forever,” he whispers. “Until chaos comes and burns us all to ash.”


End file.
